Digital humanities e storia digitale. Quale ruolo per il design? Digital humanities and digital history. What role for design?

The years-long debate over the digital humanities has seen no shortage of radical criticisms of the new theoretical and research approaches. But these criticisms almost always dwell on the big theoretical, methodological or ideological issues, while analyses founded upon assessing the results obtained in terms of the real advancement or dissemination of knowledge appear far less frequent. In particular, there are not many occasions on which the role that design plays in pursuing these results is critically discussed. This is precisely what this article tries to do by comparing the general theoretical formulations with some attempts to examine the experiences had thus far in the specific field of digital history. History, in fact, is one of the sectors most impacted by the “digital turn,” and is grappling with problems and opportunities that directly involve designers, and the culture of design, as well. The article is subdivided into three parts: the first investigates the position design occupies in the theoretical literature on the digital humanities. The second part focuses on assessing the results, while taking into consideration the particular case of history and art history. Lastly, the third part raises some final thoughts, also emphasizing the opportunities that digital provides when design itself is the object of study.